


Bone Shaker, Dominator

by dilapidatedcorvid



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Duelling, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Harrow the Ninth Spoilers (Locked Tomb Trilogy), One Night Stands, Swordfighting, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28066833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilapidatedcorvid/pseuds/dilapidatedcorvid
Summary: "Harrow—”Harrow looks up to honey-glazed eyes, and God be damned, she swears they’ve grown wide with want, dark with desire, so much warmer than before their duel. Harrow can’t remember when she noticed them change—no, this was the look she had seen when she claimed victory, a low and smouldering heat. The thought makes the corners of Harrow’s mouth lift unwittingly.Gideon’s eyes flicker to her lips and back, and Harrow decides right then and there that this is not an opportunity she is ready to miss. One hand goes for Gideon’s hip, the other to the back of her neck, and when Gideon doesn’t flinch, Harrow pulls her down to kiss her.or, Harrow Nova has something to prove and Gideon just likes girls who are good with swordsand maybe look like Harrowhark
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrow Nova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 73





	Bone Shaker, Dominator

**Author's Note:**

> After five months, this time capsule of a fic sees the light of ao3, and with art from [darlin_stardust](https://twitter.com/darlin_stardust) on Twitter!

There are a dozen empty rooms in Drearburh. They’re all unoccupied caverns painstakingly carved from the bowels of the frozen planet, vast deserted domes with carefully chiselled designs filigreeing the entrances, gracefully arching over entries and exits. Now they lay in utter disuse, here only to gather the dust falling from the ceilings on a slowly crumbling planet, shaken by the ancient machines housed on the top tier of the drill shaft; the ones that pump recyc and spit sputtering gasps of heat into the frozen corridors. 

Perhaps in better days, there would be desks here and children seated in them, etching eerily accurate depictions of skulls on their surfaces while a teacher venerated endlessly about the deeds of the eighty-four Nonas that came before the Reverend Father, Mother, and Daughter. In better times, perhaps there would be beds here for the pilgrims and the sounds of life echoing off the walls. Of sleep, of tears, of laughter.

These are not those days. 

These rooms are vacant like half of the vaults of the Anastasian; the Ninth has not produced a warrior worthy of such an entombment in a very long time. Harrow Nova intends to change that. The dead silence of the room is disturbed only by the perpetual empty rattle of the oxygen-sealant machines that labour day and night, a faint shuffling of plastic soles on a stone floor, and a whistling sound.

Harrow circles slowly in the centre of the room dimly lit by a handful of flickering, unevenly spaced fluorescent lights brought to life for the first time in years. She disturbs the fine layer of dust gathered here after decades of abandonment with her near-silent steps and the chain that she whips around her with deadly grace. One end remains coiled loosely around her forearm, the other spinning in a deadly figure eight by her side, fluid like ships cutting through space overhead, like the cold air that pours from the vents on a day when the machines take sabbatical from protesting their very existence. At its end, a solid steel weight sings its deadly tune, drawing a wail from the old Ninth halls as the bludgeoning instrument sails through the air. In her other hand is a simple rapier, plain as day, black as the shadows upon the cold walls. Harrow steps forward, slides the tip through the air in a smooth thrust, mimes a parry, ripostes. Her arms extend out like hawk wings, its tips cutting with deadly grace. She’s done this for years; her footwork is perfect, her control over the Stygian steel immaculate, her focus unwavering. Under her careful hand, a clumsy bludgeoning weapon turns into a shield of steel, an impenetrable dome promising only to fray and fracture, an unremarkable blade turns into a pen by with to sign a warrant of death. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that offhand before,” someone says from the door. Nova’s head whips in the direction of the sound and the chain follows at the ready.

The figure leaning against the carved archway is tall, one foot crossed over the other so casually it’s offensive. Her face is bare of paint, and even though the room is dim despite the sputtering lights, even though Nova has never laid eyes on the Daughter’s naked face, even though the figure is wearing mirrored shades that hide their eyes, the plume of fire-red hair is everything she needs to know exactly who this is. Harrow slows the chain until the weighted end loses momentum and drops gracelessly to the stony ground with a  _ thunk _ . “Gideon Nav, cavalier primary,” she says, nodding her head in a brief bow.

“Harrow Nova,” Gideon responds in kind. “Sorry for interrupting, this is  _ way  _ too cool to pass up the chance to see.”

Harrow hasn’t yet had the chance to be alone in the presence of the cavalier primary since they crossed paths. Something like anticipation curls in her gut and she straightens her posture, lifts her chin. She watches Gideon tilt her head and slide down the ridiculous eyewear to eye the length of chain wrapped around her forearm, black as the night. Gideon Nav’s eyes are the same liquid gold as the Daughter’s, and the intensity of her gaze rivals that of Harrow’s monarch. The realisation settles strangely in Harrow’s stomach. She lifts her arm and begins to form a coil with the chain, looping it carefully around her forearm. It drags the weighted end up into the air and in the harsh white spots emanating from ancient light tubes, the painstakingly tended-to metal gleams. “That I am some version of your necromancer? Or my offhand?”

Gideon takes off her sunglasses and walks into the room with a saunter that makes Harrow’s lip curl. It betrays ease far below the station of a cavalier primary; her every step seems to oozing bravado. Her head is cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised in what might be derision if she wasn’t also sporting an asymmetrical grin. There’s a patch under the curve of her smile where her skin is breaking out and Harrow casts her mind to anything but the knowledge that the Daughter Gideon Nonagesimus wears the same face under her paint as Gideon Nav. Instead, her eyes sweep over the strong line of Gideon’s jaw, down the slope of her shoulder under swathes of black fabric, down to her bare forearm that shows where she drapes her hand over her pommel. The dancing lights glance dramatically off of her nose and cheekbones, shadowing her lightly slanted smirk.

Both,” Gideon responds, shrugging, seemingly unaffected by Harrow’s scrutinising gaze. She sweeps her hand in a vague gesture over Harrow Nova’s figure. “Seeing Nonagesimus’ face running with something not bloodsweat is weird, and seeing someone who looks like her hold something that’s not bones? Even weirder.” 

The ease by which she moves, the unstudied way she behaves, it grates like the enamel of teeth against the crown of another. Gideon Nav is annoyingly good looking, every part a child who knows not the gravity of her post, and entirely lacks the dignity of manner for her station. 

Harrow schools her expression back into impassiveness and clears her throat. She hoists the coil up onto her shoulder in a facsimile of an aiguillette, letting the weighted end rest against the flat of her scapula. Gideon Nav’s eyes brighten in fascination at the movement, and Harrow rests her hand loosely around the cord of chain draped over her shoulder, lifting her eyebrow sharply. “The chain of Samael Novenary, cavalier to Anastasia the First, a man with the strength of this very same true black steel. You are Ninth. Surely you’ve heard of it?”

Gideon shakes her head, the polished metal glinting in the brilliant amber of her eyes. She makes an aborted movement to reach out and touch, and Harrow shifts away. Interesting. Harrow Nova may only be cavalier, and a cavalier secondary at that, but she has not arrived at her post on combat prowess alone. Gideon is simple, she decides, and there could be something to be made of this. “If you want to lay your hands on it, you’ll have to prove yourself worthy first,” she says.

Predictably, Gideon’s eyes widen a fraction with interest. She runs her hand messily through flame-red hair, pushing it coolly back and up. “My steel against yours? What do you get if you win?”

“I wish to test your mettle, cavalier primary,” Harrow says and steps back, letting the chain slip off her shoulder like a snake, the links pooling noisily on the cold Drearburh floor. “Duel me, Gideon Nav of the Ninth House,” Harrow demands. “ I will prove that I alone am worthy to hold the title to cavalier primary of my house, the guardian of the Ninth’s scion. If I win, I want you to vouch to the Reverend Mother and Father for my ascension to cavalier primary yourself. And I want your stupid sunglasses. I name the time, you name the place. The time is now.”

She can feel Gideon’s eyes rake over her form, sizing her up. They’re like searchlights, these appraising irises of burnished gold, sweeping from head to toe like it might manifest some new revelation. Harrow’s nose twitches at the blatant once-over, pushing down the swell of emotions it stirs in her. 

Then with macabre excitement, Gideon grins and reaches for the glove hanging on her belt. Now that she’s closer, Harrow can see claws of obsidian embedded in the well-worn leather, and she licks her lips in anticipation when Gideon slides it on and cinches the strap around her wrist tight. Gideon clenches her hand into a tight fist, splays her fingers wide, and shakes it out. Then, she puts the sunglasses back on, balanced precariously on the bridge of her nose. “The place is here. What are the rules?”

“To the mercy call. Hyoid down, disarm legal.” Harrow unsheathes her blade cleanly, no flourish, and Gideon mirrors the movement. “Call.”

“This  _ is  _ for fun, yes?” Gideon asks, a hint of nervousness poorly hidden by the teasing in her voice. The poor thing has probably never had to fight for her station before. She presses her off-hand flush across her chest, her sword pointed out and to the ground. “Gideon Nav the Ninth.”

“Harrow Nova the Ninth,” she says, and then with no small amount of disdain, snarls: “cavalier secondary.” Gideon’s eyebrow lifts above the rim of her sunglasses, but Harrow’s chain jangles noisily when she presses her knuckles to her collarbone and Gideon prepares for the rest of the call. 

“Nine paces back—turn—” Harrow pivots, exhales fully, lifts her sword, and steels herself. “Begin.”

Gideon has both the height and weight advantage, and one look at her brutish offhand tells Nova everything she needs to know about Nav’s fighting style. Still, the brawler’s method is weak against a fast-moving sword, and Nova is nothing if not fast. As she advances forward, she begins to spin the chain around her left hand, the whistle of her offhand blending with the dim hum of the lights overhead.

She strikes first, stepping into a lightning-fast thrust the moment Gideon steps into range. It sends her opponent instinctively onto her back foot early even as she parries to avoid a puncture to the chest. Good. She flicks her elbow into a cut and it is only by a display of extraordinary reflexes that Gideon lifts her glove to parry, wincing at the scrape of steel against obsidian glass.

The fold leaves Harrow’s flank open and even behind tinted shades, she sees the recognition in Gideon’s eye turn into deadly concentration. There’s not a moment to lose—Gideon is deceptively fast with the sword in a way that utterly belies her size and stature. Harrow whips her chain across her body to knock the blade aside, weight swinging around and nearly cinching tight around the steel before Gideon recoils as quickly as she came.

Gideon grins at her. “Not bad, cavalier secondary.”

Nova scowls and she pushes forward. Parry. Press. Fall back. Gideon’s footwork is good; it’s so much better than Harrow had originally pinned her for. Her steps are clean, the line from the tip of her blade to her wrist straight as an arrow, and her fingers wrapped around the quillion block betray nothing about her next move. 

It’s thrilling. 

Where Crux is slow and lumbering, Gideon is nimble and fast, sword tip darting out like a kiss Harrow finds she catches late more often than she’d like. But Gideon cuts too much, leaning into every attack too much, strikes too aggressively. Harrow twists her wrist from a parry to slide in along Gideon’s arm and towards her exposed flank, preying on Gideon’s error, only to be foiled once more by the obsidian knuckles, the damn things knocking away at her blade with surprising grace.

Still, Gideon Nav is fighting Harrow Nova. Harrow Nova, who has trained for this all her life. Harrow Nova, who pored over every training manual she could find in the libraries of the Ninth, who memorised the treaties and practised every movement under flickering candlelight until she could do them in her sleep with surgical precision. Her offhand sings through the air, a hymn of death and destruction. No, Gideon Nav is fighting Harrow Nova, and Harrow Nova fights like she has nothing to lose.

Their blades meet midair once more and Gideon hops backwards, putting space between them. “Oh, I change my mind, you’re  _ good _ ,” she says, using her gloved hand to push her shades back up her nose. Casual. Like they’re playing. Like this is a goddamn game.

“Shut up,” Harrow snarls, voice laced with frustration, then lunges forward.

Gideon meets every immaculately executed thrust with her own parry-riposte, folding the blade aside before darting forward, only for the threat of being bludgeoned with the offhand to push her back. She’s a smart fighter though, pushing to Harrow’s outside line to compensate. For all that she’s a brutish swordswoman, there is an intelligence in her fighting Harrow can’t help but be impressed by. A brain for the game just as sharp as the Daughter Gideon Nonagesimus, her eyes just as bright when she’s focused.

And then unexpectedly, Gideon falters. What for, Harrow has no idea. Gideon looks over the rims of her sunglasses and her eyes glaze over like she’s been struck by some profound discovery in the middle of a swordfight. 

Perhaps in a bout that means less, Harrow would still her hand and ask if she’s alright, but here she presses her advantage instead. Gideon may be well versed in the blade, but she compensates for her mistakes too often with her knuckles and Harrow has every intention of making her pay for it. Feigning a thrust to the outside line, she watches Gideon’s sword instinctively go to parry, and in that instant, she throws her chain forward.

Gideon startles and raises her arm to block. Harrow can see the moment she recognizes her mistake, but the mistake has been made. Gideon ducks, avoiding a cracked cranium, and the weighted end swings around once, twice, entangling itself around her forearm, and Harrow yanks.

Gideon rockets forward with momentum and Harrow aims her sword with eagle-eyed precision at the intercostal muscles between the third and fourth left ribs, waiting for Gideon to fall onto her blade. Waiting for victory.

Instead, Gideon twists on her toes with cat’s grace, and instead of flesh, Harrow’s sword point finds heavy canvas shredded like a hot knife through candle fat. How she managed to create enough torque to pivot like that, Harrow has no idea, but she can’t be bothered to think of it now. Not when Gideon’s still on her feet, albeit off-balance. Harrow presses forward, relentless with her attacks. She’s cutting too much now as well, she knows, but she has Gideon bound and it is but a matter of time before—

Gideon cuts hard from the elbow and Harrow moves her blade to parry, only to find herself sweeping against air. Gideon drops her sword, letting it clatter to the ground, and she grabs the chain with both hands and turns abruptly. Suddenly, there’s a terrible tightness from the chain wrapped against Harrow’s forearm as she’s dragged violently up against Gideon’s back and thrown bodily into the air.

For a moment, all she sees are the rails of light that hang from the ceiling, flickering irregularly in their ancient service, before her body crunches onto cold Drearburh stone. Stars explode behind her eyes and all the air in her lungs leave with the grunt that follows. Disoriented and gasping, there’s nothing to be done when Gideon appears in her peripheral vision, kicking her rapier out of her hand, and slides the tip of her own underneath Harrow’s chin.

“Match to Nav.” Gideon stands there, a picture-perfect image of winning gracefully, a bastion of poise in victory. The one working fluorescent light overhead lends her an otherworldly glow around offensively orange hair and though Harrow can’t see beyond the tinted lenses of Gideon’s aviators, the smirk has no smugness behind it. Like Gideon’s already let down her guard. Like she’s already won.

As far as Harrow’s concerned, the fight isn’t over yet. Her sword is halfway across the room, her chain tangled between them, but Harrow hasn’t spent her entire life training and turning her body into a weapon for her to not use it.

She tucks her heels up under herself and jackknifes her hips up, snapping out her feet square against Gideon’s stomach. Pain—searing white—bursts across her jaw, and something wet and warm splatters over her cheek. The frankly asinine sunglasses fly past her ear but she barely pays attention as Gideon crumples to the ground, stunned and winded. It’s the opening she needs. Scrambling to her feet, Harrow grabs for Gideon’s rapier and tugs, ripping it out of her grip. She clambers on top, a knee crushed against Gideon’s throat, and holds the rapier in both hands, point hovering over the heaving sternum, panting with exertion. Her arm hurts where the chain is biting into her skin and the side of her jaw feels like it’s being licked by flames, but she kneels atop Gideons’ chest, victorious.

“Match to Nova.”

She can see the rise and fall of Gideon’s chest beneath the point of her blade and her arms shake. Gideon’s eyes are a brilliant gold, bright with excitement and awe and something else Harrow can’t be bothered to place. 

“Match to Nova.” Gideon’s voice is strangled, her eyes wide, and Harrow pulls her knee away, and then tosses the sword aside. It clatters noisily against the floor. Gideon pushes herself up on her elbows, lips parted in amazement as she catches her breath. “Well shit. I’d like to think I would have done that if I were in your place.”

The compliment goes right over Harrow’s head. Nav’s face is terrifyingly close and all she can see is dark skin painted through by pale scars. There’s one that cuts right at the corner of her eyebrow, another gouged into her right cheek, a third that’s not a scar at all but rather a crooked nose that looks to have come from being poorly reset.

Gideon Nav is stunningly handsome.

The realization makes Harrow recoil and she shoves Gideon back down, getting to her feet and backpedalling away. The eyes of the Daughter Gideon Nonagesimus look back, concerned, and Harrow feels the pit in her stomach grow.

“You’re bleeding,” Gideon says. As if that, of all things, is what is bothering her.

Harrow lifts a hand to her jaw and when she looks down, her fingertips are smeared red with blood. “It’s fine,” she says. “It’s a small cut.”

“I drew blood, I shouldn’t have. Let me bandage you.” Gideon gets to her feet, sword and shades left abandoned on the floor. She reaches out with her ungloved hand and Harrow realises with absolute disgusting clarity that she wants to know how the callouses on Gideon’s palms would feel against her face.

“Fine,” she says finally, conceding this small thing. “If it will appease you.”

Gideon studies her with a curious look, then she nods. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” She picks up her rapier, sheathing it, and runs off into the darkness past the entrance to the cavern, leaving Harrow alone with her thoughts and the still-flickering lights overhead.

Alone with her arms aching, Harrow wills her limbs back into movement. She collects the chain from the ground and carries it with her to the edge of the room and she sits on the floor, leaning back against the wall. There’s sweat running down from her hairline but she dares not touch, lest she smudge her ceremonial paint. Instead, she gathers the end of the chain of Samael Novenary into her lap and she takes a square of cloth out of her pocket, beginning to polish every link in the chain one by one until the dust has fallen off and the metal shines once more.

It’s begrudging, but she has to admit: Gideon is good. There is no question about it, she has the adequate swordsmanship skills to hold her office. Why her necromantic equivalent in this world would allow for one so lacking in decorum to hold the office of primary cavalier, however, remains an enigma. To be the Ninth house primary cavalier is to submit oneself to the servitude of its scion, to bear the weight of the panniers and to carry the sword with utter obedience and obscience. Gideon doesn’t strike her as one to desire any of that. No, she had looked into Nav’s eyes and seen a woman who thirsts for freedom, who yearns for adventure, who would choke and chafe under the Ninth’s ten thousand years of tradition. Still, she supposes her work with the sword is impressive.

There’s movement at the edge of her vision and Harrow looks up to see Nav come back in with a bowl of water and a kit of some kind. “Sorry, Sister Glaurica was  _ not _ impressed that I tried to steal a bowl from the kitchens.”

Harrow raises an eyebrow. Surely, a cavalier primary could demand a bowl without fuss? Still, she carefully rearranges herself, coiling the chain and setting it to the floor beside her so Gideon could set down her items. She half expects Gideon to step back and let her bandage the wound herself, but instead, Gideon kneels by her and dips a cloth in the water.

“Tilt your head.”

She scowls, more posterity than bite, and tips her head to reveal the length of her jaw. It’s not enough for Gideon, apparently, who pushes against her temporal bone and begins to rub away at the paint and blood at her mandible despite Harrow’s hissing protest.

The thought of baring her face and making it as naked as Gideon’s is uncomfortable, but Gideon is oddly tender despite the firm touch, alien when juxtaposed to the force and ferocity with which she had fought earlier. Her brow is creased too, furrowed in concentration. There’s another breakout there between the fire red of her eyebrows and it’s oddly charming. Something juvenile marking an otherwise worn and weary face.

Silently, Harrow wonders if this Gideon is just as old as her necromantic equivalent. If she too shouldered too much responsibility for one their age, if she too dreamt of ghosts that should have never had to haunt her.

It takes her a little bit to realise that the cloth has stopped its careful swipes and that Gideon’s eyes are sweeping over her face, appraising. Harrow’s cheeks heat up and she’s thankful for the paint that still cakes the rest of her visage. She clears her throat and smirks when Gideon startles. “Have your wits left you?”

Gideon blinks, and then a cocky smile settles back over her lips. She raises an eyebrow. “No. What, you worried about me, Nova?”

It lifts her lips parallel to the line of her jaw, strong and sharp. It’s an irritatingly good look on her and Harrow forces her expression back into a scowl. It makes the cut on her jaw sting. “Shut up and put on the bandage.”

Gideon swipes once more at the wound, pressing hard, and Harrow hisses, fists tightening.

The little shit.

Gideon takes out a patch and peels off the adhesive backing, taking her lower lip between her teeth in concentration. One hand cradles Harrow’s head, the other pressing the white patch against the wound and sealing it with firm fingers from her cheek down over the edge of her mandible, nestling into the soft space under her jaw where her pulse thrums.

Gideon’s callouses are rough against her neck but every touch is suffused with a tenderness Harrow isn’t familiar with. She likes it. Worse, Harrow is certain that Gideon can feel her heart racing, her shortened breath, and without a doubt, see the way her throat works when she swallows. She is, however, familiar with the low heat that warms her cheeks, that stirs low in her belly and licks up her veins.

“Harrow—”

Harrow looks up to honey-glazed eyes, and God be damned, she swears they’ve grown wide with want, dark with desire, so much warmer than before their duel. Harrow can’t remember when she noticed them change—no, this was the look she had seen when she claimed victory, a low and smouldering heat. The thought makes the corners of Harrow’s mouth lift unwittingly. 

Gideon’s eyes flicker to her lips and back, and Harrow decides right then and there that this is not an opportunity she is ready to miss. One hand goes for Gideon’s hip, the other to the back of her neck, and when Gideon doesn’t flinch, Harrow pulls her down to kiss her.

Gideon meets her halfway in a clash of lips and teeth, a storm of hunger and want that sings in tune with the adrenaline that courses through Harrow’s blood. Gideon’s lips are the sort of chapped that come from breathing through the mouth too often, and she tastes of sweat from their bout and the Drearburh air—like the old of dried bone, of rot, of ruin. Her hands wrap around the angles of Harrow’s jaw and draws her close, palms brushing along the bandage and smearing paint along the underside.

Harrow pulls on Gideon’s hip to settle her over her lap, thighs bracketing her own. Her hands settle over quads that tense under her hands and Harrow distractedly feels along the ridges of muscle. This is so much better of an angle and Harrow captures Gideon’s lower lip between her teeth, tugging roughly and drawing a low moan from Gideon.

Oh, she despises how she yearns to hear it again.

Gideon’s hands wrap around her shoulders and her back, drawing their chests close. Harrow can feel the steady rise and fall of Gideon’s sternum as she breathes, breasts pressed against each other, necks twisted to meet lips with lips until it aches and they break away with panting breath.

“Harrow,” Gideon says. White and black have smeared into gruel grey on her lips and Harrow wants to kiss the sacramental paint off her stupid unholy face. “Harrow.”

Harrow turns her head and presses a kiss to Gideon’s jaw. Sitting like this presents the long column of Gideon’s throat where it’s easy to lean forward and smudge her face paint on the cords of muscle there, to brush kisses and paint the imprints of teeth over thin, soft skin. She reaches for flame-red hair, fists her hand, and tugs Gideon’s head back.

“Harrow,” Gideon says again, low and moaning, and Harrow feels her words rumble under her lips. It’s too soft, too much. Harrow needs hard, needs rough, needs the kind of sex that makes her feel like she’s won a fight, like she’s worthy.

“Gideon,” she growls back, and Gideon lets out a low groan. She gives Gideon’s hair one more tug before she’s grabbing at Gideon’s waist, her fingers sliding up under the material of her shirt to press up against warm skin.

“Hold on,” Gideon says and reaches behind her head to pull the shirt up to bunch under her chest.

It reveals vast expanses of tawny skin over hard-earned muscle painted with pale scars. Harrow moves her hands up Gideon’s sides, thumbs brushing against the lines of her stomach. Where Harrow is all taut muscle tacked onto a wiry frame wrought only by means of a near sadistic regimen of training, there’s a softness even here to Gideon’s body and Harrow is utterly amazed.

“Are you just going to look?” Gideon teases, threading her fingers through Harrow’s hair.

Harrow leans back into the palm at the back of her head with a sneer and squeezes her hands. “Show me something worth working for, then.”

Gideon shoves her hand up against her breast bindings, freeing her chest. “Mouth.”

The hand guides her and Harrow twists out of Gideon’s grip to latch onto the side of her breast instead, sinking her teeth into the tender flesh there. Above her, Gideon lets out a strangled noise and Harrow purrs in delight. Pulling back reveals a ring of teeth and another smudge of paint that fills Harrow’s chest with an odd, unexpected sense of pride. She leans in again, this time sucking at Gideon’s nipple pebbling in the chilled Ninth air.

Gideon’s hips jolt under her hands and the pressure against Harrow’s scalp returns. “Ah—”

Gideon’s back is free to Harrow’s exploring fingers and she feels her way along long corded muscles, over flexing planes, tracing the sharp corner of Gideon’s shoulder blade. When her fingers brush the edge of where her bindings has been rucked up, Harrow turns her fingertips into nails and scratches down her back. In response, Gideon lets out a throaty moan that says everything Harrow needs to know, and she digs her nails in harder.

“Shit, Harrow,” Gideon says, with almost a laugh on her lips.

Harrow lets go of Gideon’s nipple, slick with spit and red with the attention from her teeth. “You speak so  _ fucking  _ much.”

Gideon tugs her head back for another kiss, bruisingly hard this time. “I can be convinced to shut up,” she says when they break apart for breath, and Harrow surges up again against the smile curving Gideon’s stupid kiss-swollen lips.

Harrow grabs for Gideon’s wrists and bucks her hips up off the ground and to the side, throwing Gideon onto her back over the cold, hard Drearburh rock with her on top. Gideon lets out an  _ oomph _ and winces at the cold. Good. Harrow pulls herself out from the vice of Gideon’s thighs, lets go of her wrists, and reaches for the waistband.

Gideon’s belt is a challenge when she’s got both hands cupped around Harrow’s face and is drinking from her lips like a parched sailor, but the front of her trousers flips open easily and she lifts her hips just enough when Harrow tugs them down to her knees. She can’t imagine that lying on the ground like this is particularly comfortable for Gideon, but it also spreads her out like a lecherous reprobate overcome with wanton lust, and Harrow tells Gideon as much when she finally runs her fingers through coarse red curls.

“Pegged you for liking your women like that,” Gideon says, and Harrow gives Gideon’s clit a firm tap in response. Gideon curses lowly and Harrow slides her hand further to cup the junction of her thighs. Gideon bears down on her hand, rolling her hips, smearing Harrow’s palm. She’s wet. She’s been wanting this too.

“Come on, Harrow,” Gideon hisses, tilting her hips to grind her clit against Harrow’s hand with her eyes squeezed closed. “I gave you a good fight, didn’t I?”

And if that isn’t an interesting thing Gideon’s just said. Harrow files it away in her head and leans forward to press a kiss to Gideon’s ridiculous flexing stomach. “Stay still for me, then.”

Nav whines but braces her hands against the ground, brow furrowed in concentration. It’s a good look on her, a picture of focus and discipline. Nova looks forward to dismantling it.

“Suck.” Harrow pulls her hand away from Gideon’s cunt and presents her fingers.

Gideon’s eyes open and pushing herself onto her elbows, she turns her head to take them in her mouth, tongue flicking out before her lips wrap around the digits down to the knuckle. Harrow can feel Gideon’s tongue lave over her calloused skin, the slight pressure of Nav hollowing her cheeks. She presses down gently on Gideon’s tongue and Gideon moans, low and filthy. Harrow shouldn’t like this display as much as she does.

“Enough, you sordid beast,” she says, breath caught in her throat, and pulls her fingers back out, slick with spit. Gideon whines and rocks her hips again. Rolling her eyes, Harrow replaces her hand between Gideon’s thighs. Gideon makes another sound, this one just as gross and needy as the last.

Despite Gideon’s efforts, she’s not very good at staying still. Harrow’s fingers trace over her folds, parting them carefully and dragging along Gideon’s own wetness, a fluttering of touch. Gideon’s hips jerk of their own accord and Harrow’s grip on her hip tightens.

“Don’t be a tease,” Gideon says, breathless.

Harrow reaches up from Gideon’s hip to brush her hand over Gideon’s supraorbital foramen and along the curve of her brow. The bone structure under her thumb is incredible, and she begins to silently list off the bones of the head, pulling from the books she had memorised from the Ninth House libraries in the middle of the night to satiate her own curiosity.  _ Frontal. Sphenoid. Nasal. Lacrimal. Ethmoid. Inferior nasal concha. Vomer. Palatine. Zygomatic. Maxilla _ . As she lists them, she traces her finger down the side of Gideon’s nose and caresses her philtrum, finally slipping her thumb between Gideon’s lips.

Gideon moans, closes her eyes, and sucks, cheeks hollowing out prettily as she does. Stupid. Attractive. Gideon. Harrow hates her. She wants to fuck the smugness out of her. She wants to kiss the carelessness off of her insouciant lips. She wants to work both her fingers and discipline into her and break Gideon on them until Gideon’s mind goes blank in ecstasy and pure, unrelenting obedience to the Ninth and its traditions.

_ Mandible. Temporal. Occipital. Parietal. _ Removing her finger, she slides her hand back up, thumb smudging a wet line up along the paint on her jaw, and curves against the back of Gideon’s head. Her fingers fists in fire-red hair and tug. Hard. At the same time, her fingers circle over Gideon’s clit and Gideon  _ keens _ .

Her little noises are enough to finally convince Harrow that she deserves a little more and she spears the full length of two fingers inside Gideon. Immediately, Gideon’s clenching down, wet and hot, around Harrow’s fingers, a whimpering sigh torn from her throat. “Nova...”

Harrow presses a kiss to Gideon’s collarbone, smearing face paint along the line of her clavicle. “Needy.”

Gideon doesn’t respond with her words but she certainly does with the rest of her body, stiffening delightfully in Harrow’s grasp. She presses up into Harrow’s chest, her breasts and pebbled nipples pushed into the air in a brilliant display. Harrow files that away as well, mouthing at the hollow of her collar. There’s the saltiness of sweat there against her tongue and Harrow drags the blunt edge of teeth against the bone, nosing away the collar of Gideon’s bunched-up shirt. 

Gideon’s hips work against Harrow’s fingers, taking them with short little rolls of her hips. Her fingers scrabble against the back of Harrow’s shirt, her lips buried in short black hair as she pants. “More,” she whispers.

“Say please,” Harrow demands, releasing her hair to thumb a still-damp nipple. She drags her lips along the line of Gideon’s neck and to Gideon’s jaw, biting gently. Her fingers thrust in time with Gideon’s bucking hips, gliding smoothly in with barely any friction at all; Gideon is wetter than the River and certainly ready for more.

Gideon whimpers and Harrow can feel her jaw clench under her lips. “Nova…”

“You know how to ask politely.” Harrow curls the two fingers on their next thrust and Gideon whimpers, arching into Harrow’s chest once more and presenting the soft curves of her breasts and an unmarked sternum. It calls out to Harrow like a siren’s song and she bows her head to its beckoning.

“Please,” Gideon gasps, “please give me another finger, Nova, please.”

The want pouring off of her in waves is shameless and Harrow’s cheeks flush red once more. She hides her face, turning her attention to the valley between Gideon’s breasts and pressing kisses along the long line of the bone from manubrium to xiphoid process. Gideon smells like sweat and sex, like smoke and sacrilege. Slicking up her fingers to Gideon’s request, she turns two fingers into three and everything becomes Gideon’s keening cry and the way she stretches around Harrow, wet, warm, alive.

“God—Nova, ngh, I—”

Harrow hums at the words, pleased, and pushes through the slow burn in her forearm. Her fingers push roughly into Gideon, fucking her fast and hard, the absolutely profane sounds of Gideon—wet around her fingers—filling her ears.

Gideon howls, reaching between them to get her fingers on her clit. “Shit, shit, Nova—”

Gideon Nav is the picture of beauty when she comes. Her back arches, breasts pushed into the air as she gasps in a silent scream for air, locked in a tableau of veneration before it all gives way and she collapses into the floor, sweaty and spent.

“I didn’t even get your shirt off, you depraved lout,” Harrow says, pulling out her fingers. Gideon shudders, oversensitive, and then looks up at her through lidded eyes, golden pupils blown and dark as syrup, panting through parted lips. Harrow loses the rest of her sentence.

Gideon reaches out, grabbing Harrow by her collar and pulling her down to capture Harrow’s lips in a hot, messy, open-mouthed kiss. Harrow gives in, melting under the weight of Gideon. Her fingers are wet and chilling in the Drearburh air and she thoughtlessly wipes them clean against Gideon’s thigh.

“Could have sucked those clean for you,” Gideon mutters against her lips, and Harrow presses her thighs together. She’s wet through her underwear, this much she knows. And who could blame her, after a display of sheer raw power, talent, and training, and then absolute beauty carved before her brought to perfection by her own hand. 

God, she wants to bleach her brain after even  _ thinking  _ that sentence. 

Gideon laughs and kisses the corner of Harrow’s lips before pulling her shirt the rest of the way off. “Come on, I want to do something for you too. How do you like it?”

Harrow Nova’s brain shorts out, all words she could use to express her want, her need, evaporating from her mind along with whatever rage she had. Gideon Nav asking her what she liked was  _ not  _ part of the script. “I don’t need a lot, just…” Harrow lets out a frustrated noise. “Just kiss me and we’ll figure it out from there.”

Gideon’s grin turns cocky again, despite the hazy post-coital look in her eyes. “I can do that, I can do that.”

The next kiss is tender in a way that sets Harrow on edge and she sinks her teeth into Gideon’s lower lip until Gideon hisses, getting up onto her elbows, and kisses back harder, ounce for ounce. It’s what she likes about Gideon Nav—she’ll give as hard as she gets and spares no expense in doing so.

Hands slide under her waistband and Harrow cooperates just enough for the material of her trousers and underwear to slide off her thighs and down off her ankles. The rock is cold under her bare knees and she shivers at first contact, biting back a hiss.

Gideon pulls away, eyes dark, shirt and bra rucked up, her pants indecorously loose and open around her thighs. God, she has no right looking this good when so utterly dishevelled. “You alright?”

Harrow opts to not answer, grabbing onto each side of Gideon’s face and bringing their lips together. Their teeth clack and Harrow hopes she managed to get face paint on Gideon’s enamel.

Her thoughts, though, are ended when Gideon props a leg up between Harrow’s and her hands grip around her hips, setting Harrow on a slow and dirty grind over her thigh. “That good?”

The first drag of her clit against the bare skin has Harrow pulling back to muffle a cry into the palm of her hand. She bites hard into her lower lip and rolls her hips again. It’s better this time now that she’s prepared and it shoots through her spine, electricity through her nerves and gathering in a pool of heat in her lower belly.

“No, no,” Gideon gently removes Harrow’s hand from her face. “I want to hear you,” she says, “I want to know what I do to you.”

If Harrow had words, she’d say something about how it’s written all over Gideon’s thigh in the way she’s smearing wetness over her skin. If Harrow had words, she’d rebuke Gideon with every curse left in her sex-addled brain and tell her to shut up and fuck her, to save the words for someone who actually cares. But Harrow doesn’t have words. She has Gideon’s thigh against her cunt, she has Gideon’s hands guiding her hips into each rutting motion, and all she can bring herself to do is moan low in her throat.

One of Gideon’s hands slide up her side, fingers curving around to her spine, and Harrow’s hand snaps out, snagging her wrist violently before her fingers can brush a scar. “No,” she mutters, dragging up words from her foggy mind. “Not my back.”

Gideon nods and reaches for her breast instead, rucking the shirt up so she can thumb at a nipple. At first touch, Gideon’s eyes widen, and gold is made brilliant by fascination. “Oh shit.” Gideon looks up and the awe is writ large on her face. “They’re pierced?”

It’s a stupid question. Gideon has eyes. Harrow shoves her shirt the rest of the way over her breast and Gideon lets out a barely filtered gasp of delight before she’s leaning in to examine, to breathe on the metal, to take it into her mouth in supplication. Harrow shouts, hips jerking, and like that, Gideon’s thumb is on her clit. It’s exactly what Harrow needs. Harrow’s head tips back and she entirely lacks the wherewithal to hold back the moan that echoes off the cavern walls.

Gideon’s touch is firm and fast and it’s so much, it’s too much. Harrow fists her hand into Gideon’s hair, tugging brutally. Blood roars in her ears and she tips over the edge into white noise with a ragged scream and nails raking down Gideon’s bare back.

By the time she has gathered any semblance of her wits back, things have changed. Somewhere, she must have collapsed into Gideon’s chest. Somewhere, Gideon must have pulled away her fingers, still wet with arousal. Somewhere, she must have allowed herself to be held, to have her hair stroked. It’s jarring and Harrow startles, shoving away before she locks eyes with Gideon.

Gideon, who looks utterly debauched—her lips are kiss and bite-swollen, her hair is mussed, her eyes half-lidded, Harrow’s paint smeared in splotchy grey patches across her face—and who is smiling at her. “Hey.”

Something seizes in Harrow’s chest and she turns her face away. It’s not shame that makes her flush. It’s not admiration either. It’s something else, something more complicated and entirely inappropriate to dissect here. She rolls off of Gideon’s lap and tugs her ruined underwear and trousers on, pulls the hem of her shirt down, runs her hands through her hair and resettles it, all with thoughtless efficiency. Her thighs ache, her throat is dry and sore, and she feels so utterly out of place. The musty air feels heavy in her lungs and her eyes dart to the exit. She grabs for the chain of Samael Novenary and sets it on her shoulder, the weight a comfort in this weirdness. Then starts for the door. 

A glint catches her eye on the way out and she bends down to pick up a pair of mirrored aviators left discarded on the ground. Her own reflection stares back mockingly at her, the lower half of her paint smudged beyond recognition. She turns around, something caught in her throat. She doesn’t have words so she instead, holds them out in lieu of speaking.

Gideon’s looking back at her, something Harrow can’t put her finger on written all over her face. It’s not resignation, it’s not anger, it’s not relief. It says absolutely nothing and also absolutely everything, and Harrow locks up in place.

“Keep ‘em.”

Harrow’s chest lurches. It would be a terrible idea to go back and return the glasses, running the risk of allowing herself to... indulge. It would be a worse idea to leave pretending this didn’t happen. Like the satisfying ache between her legs and the dull burn in her forearm weren’t gifts given freely to each other. She wants to run. She wants to stay. She can do neither. She settles for giving Gideon a sharp nod of the head. 

Gideon’s lip quirks up on one side. Asymmetrical. “Hey, did I prove myself enough to touch the chain?”

“You’ve touched plenty already,” Harrow says, holding back a snort. She’s afraid that if she lets it show on her lips, she just might linger. Might sit back down. Might allow herself to want for more. “Another time.” It sounds like a promise, and in the depths of her heart, Harrow allows herself a crack in her armour, allows herself to hope for a second encounter. Her hand closes around the glasses, careful not to crush them.

“See you around, then,” Gideon says, leaning back on a hand to wave goodbye. Her trousers remain pooled around her knees, hair incriminatingly tousled. It’s so casual it’s unbecoming of the Cavalier Primary of the Ninth House.

It’s so Gideon Nav.

Harrow Nova turns and leaves the cavern without saying another word. 

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, this has been a long time coming. I opened a Word document for this on 5 October, a full 5 months ago haha. It's really been an interesting journey seeing how far my writing has come since then, and also how my read of the characters have changed. It also... becomes pretty clear I was writing this before my neuroanatomy final because there's a bunch of skull bones listed out. Oh, the joys of writing as a student. Think of this as a bit of a throwback to my pre-Canyons days.
> 
> Massive thanks to [darlin_stardust](https://twitter.com/darlin_stardust) on twitter for this incredible artwork, and for suggesting this exchange. It has been such a delight to write for you, and to see my silly little words come to life in an image. This has been a lot of fun and I'm so glad we could collaborate on a little project together!  
> Big thanks as well to [@alittlegloomy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlegloomy) for your editing work on this fic months ago. I'm glad we got to work on this, even if I asked you to beta it a second time having forgotten that you had already done it, haha. Perils of having a work in progress for five months.  
> Additionally, for as much as I enjoy writing action, none of the swordfighting scenes would have been possible without [@vandalwithoutacause](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vandalwithoutacause) and [@THE_EVIL_CLIFFIE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_EVIL_CLIFFIE) and their sharp eyes in picking out what made sense and what didn't. Your help is greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Title from "Gladiator" by Zayde Wølf
> 
> Tumblr: [frumpkinspocketdimension](https://frumpkinspocketdimension.tumblr.com/)  
> Discord: SweetBabyRae#0967


End file.
